This disclosure relates to detecting intrusion from a communication application on a computer system.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, such as, for example, Skye (Skype is registered trademark of Skype Limited in the US and other countries) allow users to make telephone calls over the Internet, free of charge. Although these peer-to-peer applications are primarily Voice Over IP (VoIP) applications, they also integrate other services such as Instant Messaging (IM), file sharing, video sharing, etc.
Often, in order to provide the services free of charge, the applications take advantage of existing infrastructure to facilitate the communication. For example, the Skype services do not use any infrastructure of their own, rather Skype uses the existing infrastructure of users' computers and internet service providers (ISPs) for call setup and call transmission. This use of the existing infrastructure is performed without notification. For these applications, the use of the existing infrastructure cannot be regulated by the user. Without regulation, the use of the user's infrastructure can result in revenue loss and bandwidth loss for the users and the ISPs.
In another example, as part of its proprietary behavior, Skype makes use of the processing power of network hosts (e.g., university computers) by promoting their use as Skype super nodes by routing numerous calls through the network host. The use of these network hosts can further result in unwanted loss of available processing power (CPU and memory) for the network hosts.